Procedural Justice
Beat Intro
Voiceover
00:00 This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest
community policing topics facing our nation.
Interview
Barry Bratburd
00:08 Hello, my name is Barry Bratburd and, on behalf of the COPS Office, I’d like to
introduce you to Dr. T. Bowman. Dr. Bowman is here to talk to us today about
how and why the Arlington, Texas, Police Department is operationalizing
procedural justice into their agency. First of all, Dr. Bowman, can you share with
us what procedural justice is, what it looks like in a law enforcement agency?
Dr. T. Bowman
00:30 Yes, sure. It’s pretty simple. We have to treat citizens we interact with like we
need them, like they’re important to us. So we have to treat them with dignity
and respect. We have to give them a say. We have to listen to their side of the
story and make sure that they understand that we really care in whatever way we
interact with them.
Barry
00:51 Can you describe how you’re implementing procedural justice in the Arlington,
Texas, Police Department?
T.
00:56 Well, I tell you, Barry, the most recent iteration of our emphasis on procedural
justice has actually been connected with our efforts to reduce crime even further.
We’re in a community where crime is relatively low because of police efforts and
community policing partnerships. We recently started to meet with every
employee and every group in the police department about even further reducing
crime beyond our historical lows. We combined our emphasis on procedural
justice with a need to enhance citizen engagement. We showed every employee
in the organization how they work hand-in-hand, especially in this economy
where there are no additional resources. Police officers, additional civilian
personnel, and budget resources—we’ve been talking to every employee about
the need to reduce crime by increasing compliance, voluntary compliance.
We understand that by giving citizens a say, by making them feel respected by
the police, by increasing our legitimacy among the citizen population, that we in
turn increase their voluntary compliance with the law, which ultimately reduces
crime in our city and gets more people voluntarily involved. We’ve engaged
every aspect of the agency—sworn and non-sworn—in ensuring, whether they’re
interacting with people across a records counter or taking reports by telephone,
that they’re still interacting with citizens. They have an opportunity to listen and
explain to people and do so in a way that makes them feel like we really respect
who they are and what they do.
Barry
02:51 Can you give us a couple more examples of how police interactions with the
community have changed since you implemented procedural justice?
T.
02:57 Well certainly. I can give the records counter example again. For example, our
records clerk—now that’s a non-sworn component of the police department—
they said that prior to the emphasis on procedural justice and citizen engagement,
their primary responsibility in citizen interaction was to provide requested reports,
in some cases do fingerprinting, respond to requests for criminal history
information and files, and that sort of thing. What’s important is that they
recognize that they had a number of interactions with citizens but never viewed
them as opportunities to enhance our legitimacy among the citizens.
After the emphasis on procedural justice, every employee had a say, an input;
they vowed that from now on, in every interaction they had with a citizen across
the records counter, they would view that as an opportunity to impress upon that
citizen the importance of him or her to our community, to our police department,
the fact that their opinion matters, and that we would commit to procedural
justice in every interaction.
The telephone report operator’s the same. I’ll use that example. What they had
done, historically, was receive about a third of our crime reports by telephone.
They would call victims of crime back and they would take the report. That’s
been a pretty routine process. The citizen has a crime to report. They want to
report it by phone versus having an officer go there physically, and so the
telephone report operators have taken those reports. With the emphasis on
procedural justice, they now see those interactions as opportunities. They
understand that the way they treat people on the telephone can have an impact
on how they see officers that they confront in some other physical interactions.
Those are just two examples of the way that we’ve implemented procedural
justice and the way that it’s made a difference to, not just the person doing it,
but to the entire agency.
Barry
05:16 Well it’s great to hear the perspective of your non-sworn personnel but how about
the sworn officers? How do they feel about implementing procedural justice both
at the organizational level and the community level?
T.
05:26 What the officers have told me is that the emphasis on procedural justice has
given them clear direction on my expectation and the police expectation on the
cultural aspects of the police department. They know that we want officers
fighting crime. We want officers responding to calls. We want officers being
proactive. We want them to continue their high levels of activity, but when it
comes to treating citizens, we want them to do that with dignity and respect. We
will tolerate nothing less. The officers are excited about that. They’re very clear
on it, and they’re going forward with that message.
I’d like to share just a quick story from just this week, just a couple of days ago.
One of my officers, unsolicited, e-mailed me and said, “Chief, I just want you to
know that Alfred came into our office today.” Alfred is a homeless guy. He was
recently evicted. He’s schizophrenic. He’s also a substance abuser. Another
officer has been working with MHMR trying to get him connected with a
caseworker, trying to get him some help, and he recognizes that. When Alfred
came into the office, he said, “Miss Stephanie, God blessed me today.” She said,
“Oh yeah? What did he do?” He said, “Somebody stopped and gave me two
apples. I can’t eat apples, and so I thought about you and Officer Griffith and I
wanted to bring y’all these apples ‘cause you’re trying to help me.” For that
person, the police are legitimate. For the officers in our city, they see that all the
time because they treat people with dignity and respect.
Barry
07:08 Wow, what a great example. What have been some of your agency’s successes in
implementing procedural justice? Have you had any big challenges? If so, how
have you addressed them?
T.
07:17 Well, all I have to talk about is success. I could go for the next several hours
talking about successes. Let me tell you, what we’ve seen is that we cannot
implement and continue to maintain our position on procedural justice without
seeing some corresponding benefit. The citizens react to being treated with
dignity and respect. The business community does so as well. What we’re seeing
is, because of the way the cops treat the citizens and the interaction with business
owners, we’re starting to see positive impact on economic development and
business investment in our city. We’re starting to see a positive benefit where
they’re starting to put more money into the city and pay more because of the way
that they’re treated. That, in turn, benefits not only the cops but everybody in our
city.
Barry
08:10 What would you say to other chiefs, especially those who are considering
institutionalizing procedural justice, and also to those who think it might just be
the newest fad? What would you say to those chiefs?
T.
08:22 Well, it’s not a fad. It’s great policing. It’s not new policing, it’s great policing.
In the words of one of my officers, it’s just treating people with good old-
fashioned kindness. It’s treating folks with dignity and respect. It’s what we
who are the keepers of the Constitution, who are committed to Constitutional
policing, who are committed to providing to citizens the kind of treatment that
they deserve in this kind of government system, it’s an absolute necessity.
I would say to every chief everywhere that, while we extend a hand to the
citizens and we try to make sure that we’re treating citizens with dignity and
respect, it’s critical that we do that to our employees as well. If we take the
external and the internal approach and treat everybody like we need them, then
we will provide the highest level of service to our citizens and our employees that
we possibly can. It’s an absolute necessity.
Barry
09:22 Dr. Bowman, thank you so much for providing us with your expertise and your
time today.
T.
09:26 Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure.
Beat Exit
Voiceover:
09:29 The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS
Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving
grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications,
developing partnerships, and solving problems.
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